Those fans of Dead Island that will be able to pull themselves away from Modern Warfare 3 this week will get to finally enjoy a large patch. The patch contains a large number of updates, interface improvements, bug fixes, and some nice enhancements. The enhancements include a raise of the level cap to 60 and blue prints for weapon mods.

The patch is coming only for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Dead Island. (A patch for the PC version is still apparently in development.) It should be live for download for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at some point today.

With so much in this patch, the only real question is whether Dead Island will be able to draw players back to the game to give the stuff in the patch a try. We hope so, as this patch should really make a good game even better.

For those that might have listened to the Crystal Dynamics podcast, you heard a little surprise announcement that you didn’t expect. Apparently, once the studio wraps up the new Tomb Raider reboot that they have been working on, the studio is laying the ground work to start to develop a new title.

While studio big cheese Darrell Gallagher admits that they are in the very early stages of looking at developing new IP, they would like to take the technology and everything that they have learned working on Tomb Raider and apply that to a new title.

Crystal Dynamics has been around a long time and has gone though many changes over the years developing titles for a variety of platforms. We surely would like to see them do something new.

As we expected, whispers that we are hearing today from the land of the rising sun tell a story of a new version of the PlayStation 3 console said to be in development to address the security breach of the PlayStation 3. The new console will apparently not be able to be exploited in the same way that the current versions of the console are. The new hack-proof version is said to feature several new advancements to reduce cost; but basically it is still the same slim version of the console, with the exception that it is said to include a 300GB hard drive.

Sony has apparently not figured out when it will release the new version of the PS3 into distribution, but it is prepared to slash prices of the consoles sitting in inventory and on dealer shelves to help move the older models out as quickly as possible, if necessary. A lot will depend on the damage that continues to be done by the hacks hitting the console and the impact that it is having, as well as the lawsuit with George Holtz (who apparently released the information that is leading to the latest exploits on the platform).

It is doubtful that Sony will build any more of the current revision of the console; so if the company needs to re-order more units before they have decided to release the new version, then they will build and release the new version of the console at that time. It is going to happen, as one source told us, but it is really more of a question of when is the right time to move forward with the release of the new model.

According to a number of sources as well as postings around the Internet, it would seem that Remedy, the developer of the finally released Alan Wake, is already working on something new. The company was the developer for Max Payne and the Death Rally series from back in the day.

The studio struggled to cross the finish line with the title Alan Wake, which despite some very positive reviews was not very well received by the buying public. The title has only sold about 250,000 copies since it finally arrived in July after cancellation of the PC version and numerous delays.

While no one knows what the developer might be working on, word is that the publisher is likely Microsoft. It is likely that we will not find out more till E3, but we suspect that the next title that the studio releases will have a much shorter development cycle, according to sources that we have spoken with.

As for Alan Wake, the number of actual units in gamer hands will go up this holiday season, as this title is part of the Elite holiday bundle this season. This is actually good, because after playing it ourselves, we can tell you that it is really quite a good game. We are still not sure, however, that it has lived up to all of the delays and hype that surrounded it before release.